15th - Arrival at Port Blair

15th - Arrival at Port Blair

We reached port at around 8+am Echo Foxtrot, which was about 10:30 Hotel time. There's a 2 1/2 hour time difference at Port Blair.

I suppose i should tell you what i know about Port Blair, what little i know from Wikipedia.

Port Blair (coordinates: 11°40′N 92°45′E) is the largest town and a municipal council in Andamans district in the Andaman Islands and the capital of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands union territory of India. It lies on the east coast of South Andaman Island and is the main entry point to the islands.

It is also the headquarters for the Indian district of Andaman, and the local administrative sub-division (tehsil), which is also called Port Blair.

It is home to several museums and a major base for the Indian Coast Guard.

Quoted from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Port_Blair
There's a bit more information there, but really nothing much.

Anyways, as our ship was heading alongside, we saw many trees, coconut trees, and only a few buildings.

There was a trip to Ross Island at 2+pm, where i took the bus from our location, To Aberdeen Ferry where we waited for a few minutes before taking the boat over. The ride took less than 10 minutes, and here we are at Ross island~

Its like visiting an open aired musuem. I saw some ruined british buildings like a bakery and a chapel. Also saw a Japanese bunker, and a ruined mineral water plant. There were some tombstones, and at the end of the entire 2 hour trip we had some coconuts to drink.

Yet the most interesting things i saw must be the abundence of squirrels, the 3 deers, and the Antelope.. with its antlers intact~

I must say, the bad thing about this trip is that somehow we got mixed in with another group of Indian tourists, and they started merging with us. Which made things decidedly confusing and messy.

Anyhows we took the ferry back, and then a bus to Aberdeen Bazaar.

We walked around a bit, before stopping at the Lighthouse(which happens to be the restaurant of the only 3-star hotel in the port). There were loads of stuff in the menu, and after looking through it, i had the Chicken Roast Grill + a Milkshake (170+30) The milkshake tasted like Bandung, just that it had an extremely sweet aftertaste. We also ordered Fish fingers, crab meat soup, and chilli chicken as appetitizers. For the 4 of us, it came up to 200+ Rupees each.

I forget to mention, SGD$1 = 27 Rupees. So by comparison, it was really cheap.

The thing about this lighthouse, is that it takes about 45 minutes for the order to arrive. Sometimes there's coke, sometimes there isn't, the same with ice. But still, the food was quite good, and we were satisfied.

We walked around after that, and chanced upon a Hallmark shop. I think its one of the few fully air-conditioned shop in the entire place. They were playing old english songs too. Early 2000 that is.

Also stopped at a giant provision store, sort of like NTUC, just that there were no frozen food, and the stuff there were mostly expired, most of the dates are 17th Feb 2007. Hmm. Yet the natives buy it like there's nothing wrong.

I'm sure i could eat them and still be safe, but we decided not to chance it.

Then took the bus back to shop, had a shower, and slept.